Costa Rica

Wednesday, November 26, 2014

It is
almost Thanksgiving here in the States and I am most definitely looking forward
to eating a ton of delicious food. My
wife always makes the best meals for the holidays and since she’s Canadian, and
since her Thanksgiving is in October, I get 2 Thanksgiving meals. What a sweet deal I landed, eh? Generally speaking, each year we have meals
that features new dishes or variations on the old standards that make each
holiday unique and never dull. Not once
has there been a meal that’s disappointed.

It’s odd to think that since I used
to always associate the holidays with specific dishes and any variation on that
would feel catastrophic. Turkey, gravy,
mashed potatoes, stuffing, sweet potatoes with marshmallows, and broccoli
casserole were absolute musts and I would eat them until I would collapse. But now?
Now, each holiday is something new and different – variety truly is the
spice of life and I don’t miss the animal-centered meals that used to
constitute my traditions at all. I don’t
mind doing something different. Doing
something different has become our tradition.
This brings me to my next point.

Just because something is a
tradition, doesn’t mean you have to keep doing it. We’ve outgrown many traditions as human civilization has advanced
without giving it a second thought. It
used to be traditional to use leeches in medical procedures but I don’t see
people being treated with leeches in every hospital across the country. Why?
Because it’d be silly to do so when we have the knowledge to make better
decisions. The same can go for the
traditions we hold around our food options.

Why raise turkeys by the millions
just to be tortured, killed, and then consumed by us for one or two meals out
of the entire year? Just for tradition’s
sake? Turkeys don’t deserve that weak
excuse and if you’ll keep reading, I hope to explain why that is.

To start, turkeys are incredible
creatures. My wife and I were able to
discover this firsthand when we visited both the Woodstock Farm Sanctuary and
the Farm Sanctuary location in Watkin’s Glen in New York. They will stroll right up to you if they’re
in the mood and let you pet them. It’s
very cool to see how brilliant their colors are in person and to feel how soft
their feathers are and how unafraid they are of humans. It would be like petting someone’s dog or
cat that would come rubbing up against your leg. If they’re feeling particularly friendly, they’ll show off by
spreading their tail feathers at you. I
must’ve taken over thirty pictures of all the turkeys I saw while at the two
farms.

They are incredibly social and I
could’ve watched them cuddle next to each other or walk around in their
enclosure together all day. Not only
that but turkeys can identify each other by the noises each makes and can form
bonds with each other that lasts forever.
Their mothers will also sleep with her poults (baby turkeys) under her
wings at night until they can be on their own.
I had no idea but their heads can also change color depending on their
emotional state. This may also blow
your mind: wild turkeys can fly. What’s more, turkeys can adjust their sight
to gain a 360-degree view. I think the
coolest fact, however, is that they have such an amazing memory for location
that they can recall a place they’ve been only once before. Turkeys in the wild can have a roaming range
of up to 1,000 acres and can remember where they found food the previous year
and return there in hopes of finding food again.

Sadly, there are way too many
turkeys that don’t make it to safe havens like the ones I visited last
year. Millions of turkeys are raised
and killed each year for those holiday meals.
Right from birth they know only terrible conditions. Most of the turkeys raised will never feel
the grass under their feet or the sun on their heads. More and more turkeys are being consumed and so bigger and bigger
turkeys are in demand. To reach this
goal, most are genetically enhanced to reach a weight that they would never
achieve in nature. These overgrown
turkeys suffer health issues because their frames were never meant to carry the
weight. Think of all those supermarket
tabloids or the daytime TV shows that show morbidly obese humans that are over
400 pounds. Just like our bodies
weren’t meant to carry that much weight, neither are turkeys’ bodies. Remember how I said wild turkeys can
fly? Unfortunately, domesticated birds
can’t due to their larger frames.

Since they are crammed into tightly
packed barns where they only receive a few feet of space to stand or sit, many
turkeys suffer from incredible stress.
Imagine being crammed into a bus or train and being stuck squished
between people you don’t know for any amount of time. You’d go insane within five minutes. Imagine having that for your entire life. Due to the stress turkeys feel, they have to
be painfully de-toed and de-beaked to avoid them attacking and injuring each
other. The process is performed on
newborn poults with shears or a hot blade and without any pain medicine.

Sadly, within just a few months of
age and due to the genetic manipulation to increase their size, the turkeys
that are sent to slaughter can be injured by the rough treatment they
experience during the shipping process and many die even before they reach the
slaughterhouse. No matter if you are
buying a “humanely raised” turkey (which is a bullshit expression no matter
what you were told or what you believe) or not, all turkeys are hung upside
down for slaughter while they are both alive and conscious of the process. Not only is the process barbaric but there
is such disgusting conditions on these farms that the chances a turkey is
covered in some sort of disgusting by-product of other animals is probably
quite high.

You don’t need me to tell you that
turkeys face terrible conditions at the slaughterhouses. You probably have heard or seen reports from
such places that service familiar turkey companies like Butterball. Sadly, such stories tend not to be the exception
to the rule. Cruelty abounds in the
animal food service like with THIS story.

This all brings me to my next
topic. If you feel sad over the
conditions these smart and beautiful creatures feel and you want to do
something to help the few that make it out of those conditions alive, I highly
urge you to donate to Farm Sanctuary.
Currently you have the chance to ‘adopt’ a turkey for just thirty
dollars. That thirty dollars will go to
help care for the turkeys at Farm Sanctuary.
It’s such an easy thing to do and the feeling you’ll get knowing you
helped improve their life is worth it.
If you don’t want to adopt one or if you are reading this and they don’t
have their annual adoption drive, then you can always make a donation for all
of the animals at their locations because not only have turkeys suffered, all
farmed animals have suffered. We’ve
adopted turkeys in previous years and this year we’ve adopted Cecilia (Who is
so cute. Just go look at her
inquisitive stare!).

I can hear you ask, “But what about
my turkey at Thanksgiving [or any holiday]?!
What do I do instead?”

Fear not! There are plenty of options out there nowadays for you to
try. Tofurky still has one of the best
go-to options for those craving a turkey substitute. Quite honestly? Their
roast is very good with gravy and I never thought I’d ever eat anything from a
company called “Tofurky”. Seriously,
give it a shot if you can. Not only
that but a great company called Field Roast has a few options for you to try
(also quite good!). You could always
try your hand at homemade roasts using seitan if you feel confident in your
cooking skills. My wife has made a few
homemade seitan dishes during the holidays and they have all been amazing. They might not taste the same as that turkey
did but when you combine the knowledge that you aren’t hurting another living
being and you’re eating a bit healthier, you won’t even care. Many of the vegan roast options also have a
similar consistency as animal flesh so if you’re just craving that experience,
you won’t be lacking in that department either. Or you could just as easily make several amazing vegan dishes
without any animal flesh substitutions.
You are only limited by your imagination and the amount of spices you
can throw together.

"See? Going turkey-free is easy as can be!"

See, who needs those silly food
traditions when you can try cool, new, and even tastier options? Besides, eating turkeys at Thanksgiving only
really came about in the 19th century. We think of the first Thanksgiving meal coming shortly after the
arrival of the pilgrims to the New England area. That leaves a few hundred years where turkeys were not apart of
any fall celebration. So, as easily as
turkeys became apart of our traditions, so to can it become separated from our
traditions. It just takes one meal to
start things off for you! If I can do
it, anyone can!

If you’re vegan or vegetarian, and
you’re reading this, what is it that you do
for food around the holidays?
Let me know!

I hope you all have an awesome and
safe Thanksgiving this year filled with good times and great food! I shall update about the meal we will have
on my next post. Since my wife is
making dinner tonight, the house is filling with mouth-watering smells that are
making it difficult for me to concentrate on writing. I will have to end this here and try to sneak a bite or two
before we eat. Until then, keep calm
and vegan on!

To learn more about Farm Sanctuary and/or their turkey
adoptions, go HERE. They’re also on a
number of social media sites including Twitter at: @FarmSanctuary

To learn more about Tofurky, go HERE. They, too, are on Twitter at: @Tofurky

To learn more about Field Roast, go HERE. They are also on Twitter at: @fieldroast
For more on turkeys, go HERE or HERE.

Wednesday, October 29, 2014

I was going
to wait to discuss my vacation until I had finished editing my photographs but
if I did that, I’d never end up talking about the trip. It’s quite sad how many photographs I take
on vacation. I’m still editing photographs
from vacations we took five years ago.
So in the interest of memory’s sake I shall at least discuss the first
few impressions of Ecuador that I had as a vegan. You know, incase anyone of my readers here wants to go there some
day.

First of
all, here is Ecuador:

That may
seem odd to those reading this if you’re not from the U.S. but it really is
necessary. Geography and Americans are
like the continental drift: as time
goes on, the distance between the two groups grows.
…Anything? Come on, that’s a decent geology joke. Anyway.
I was quite apprehensive about
our trip to Ecuador. I had visions of
the streets roaming with pickpockets, volcanoes spewing down in every town we
stopped (it seemed like every travel book said some active volcano was right
next to wherever we were staying), and having terrible food poisoning
throughout the trip. I must also point
out that this didn’t happen just because we were going to South America, per
say. I also got nervous before our
trips to Ireland, Costa Rica, and Germany.
Any destination far from home where I either don’t speak the native
language fluently or where I expect culture clashes to occur can fill me with
dread.

Then you
add in the fact that I’m vegan and I have to somehow convey this message whenever
we eat out? Checking out the Happy Cow
site didn’t do much to calm my fears much either. Even 1 review of, “I tried to tell them I’m vegan but I could
definitely taste dairy cheese,” can be enough to fill me with panic. I had taken Spanish for 2 years in high
school and off-and-on while in college but even with a small refresher using
Rosetta Stone, I still couldn’t remember every fruit and vegetable out
there. What if I thought a word that
was in a dish was a vegetable but was really some sort of animal product? Yeah.
Fun.

How I knew everything would be ok. Bumblebee was at the Quito airport!

So, with
all of this apprehension, we arrived safely in Quito after a long day of
flying. After walking through the
airport and taking a taxi that seemed to zip in-and-out of lanes with a speed
barely slow enough for the human brain to process, we were dropped off at our
hotel in the heart of Quito. Being
almost ten o’clock, we didn’t feel like eating anything despite having nearly
nothing of substance to eat all day.
Instead, we decided to just eat a snack bar and some homemade bread we
had stuffed in our backpacks.

Quito! From the slopes of Pichincha

Because we
were there for only a limited amount of time, and because we wanted to see as
much of the country as possible, we crammed as many activities into one day
that we could. After hiking around the
slopes of Pichincha volcano (exhausting, by the way, if you’re not acclimated
to the heights. We went from about 10,000 ft. to about 13,000 ft.) and parts of
the old town, we went for a late dinner at El Maple, which was about a
ten-minute walk from our hostel.

It was a
bit difficult to find, however, since Happy Cow’s directions were both a bit
off and vague. I walked up and down the
block it was supposedly on and tried to get directions from people inside a
fast food joint (awkward much? Being a
vegan and going into a chicken fast food place for directions.). That didn’t pan out. I finally found someone inside an internet
café that had heard of it and we were on our way!

It was a
cool little vegetarian restaurant with brightly lit rooms on the inside. We had one room all to ourselves for most of
our meal but that’s probably because we were eating after eight and most people
in Ecuador seem to have dinner either earlier or later. Either way, I was looking to devour some
food. Besides a very small breakfast in
our hotel that morning, we hadn’t had much since. Eating one or two meals a day would be a regular thing for us on
our vacation.

Breakfast at 1 of our hostels.

With the
apprehensions I spoke of earlier running through my mind, I nervously ordered
dinner for myself. Thankfully, the meal
turned out to be quite good! For an
appetizer we had ordered a plate of diced potatoes covered in some sort of
sauce (sorry, my memory is fading) and for a main meal we each had a plate with
rice, seitan ‘steak’, lentils, a plantain, and a tiny salad. I was worried about the raw salad because
everything I read said to avoid raw salads but I figured that was mainly aimed
at people eating in omnivore restaurants, so I ate it anyway. Besides, when you’re ravenous, you will eat
anything.

Even though
the meal was delicious, it definitely wasn’t an American-sized meal. Needless to say, I was still a bit hungry
even after the meal but it probably would’ve been fine had I had more food
throughout the day. Thankfully,
worrying about the raw salad was pointless because I had no trouble that night
or for most of the three-week vacation.
I’m not sure if that is due to veganism or because I was just lucky but
I’ll take it.

Restaurante Manantial

The next
day was another day where we had one main meal but this time it was a late lunch
at Restaurante Manantial, a vegetarian restaurant. Again, the place was impossible to find because there was no sign
outside to indicate where it was and the directions on Happy Cow were vague. Again, we were hungry as hell when we showed
up. The portions for our meals were
small but that was my fault. I
misunderstood the guy at the counter and asked to have the fixed menu for my
wife and I. The meal cost us about six dollars
and while the food was good, it wasn’t enough for people who were starving. And again, I ignored the warning about raw
salad and ate some anyway.

That night
my stomach was just killing me. I even
passed fast food joints where I knew there wouldn’t be anything to eat with a
look of longing. We ended up ducking
into a place called the Toronto Restaurant, a buffet place, because if I was
going to resort to eating in an omnivore establishment, it was going to be in a
Canadian-themed restaurant in Ecuador.
My wife didn’t partake but I devoured the hell out of a ton of potatoes,
broccoli, rice – to name a few. It was
a pit stop made out of necessity rather than desire, really. I was really nervous because it was our
first stop into an omnivore restaurant and a buffet to boot. My mind’s paranoia was screaming at me not
to put anything on my plate but my stomach won out. I’ll admit that I’m not really proud of this food stop. Not because the food was bad but because
after leaving, I felt like someone sneaking out of a one-night stand’s
apartment with disheveled clothes at five in the morning.

Overall, my
initial fears around food were somewhat misplaced. Up to this point I didn’t really have trouble communicating that
we were vegan and didn’t eat certain foods.
I enjoyed Quito a lot more than I thought I would even though there were
quite a lot of people. The food for
vegans and vegetarians is pretty decent and there are several vegetarian and
vegan restaurants throughout the city.
If you ever make it there, you won’t go hungry. Just make sure you don’t do it like I did
and eat one or two meals a day (womp womp).

One thing
that made me a bit sad was the amount of street cart vendors that had piles of
dead animals roasting on open grills.
The smells wafted through the air around these carts and there were
quite a few people eating off of them.
It was a sad sight for a number of reasons, not least of which was the
image of all the animals being raised for these food carts. Plus, it just looked so incredibly
unhealthy. If even half of all the food
carts that we saw in Ecuador and Peru started to operate in the States, every
single one would probably be shut down for poor sanitation.

South
America also has a lot of stray dogs roaming the streets and every sad or sick
or malnourished dog I saw, I could only think about our Collie. I wish I could’ve taken care of each one of
them. I had to resist the urge to go
pet every dog I saw. My wife, on the
other hand, picked and chose which dogs she would or wouldn’t pet, leaving me
exasperated as I tried to urge her to back away. I secretly was glad she ignored me to show the dogs a small sense
of compassion.

Other than
that, however, it was a positive experience in Quito. I would definitely go back.
I think this is as good a place as any to end things for part 1. Perhaps I will pick it back up at some point
in the future. Until then, keep calm
and vegan on!

If you want to learn more about El Maple, you can go
HERE. You can find them on a number of
social media sites including Twitter at: @elmaple (they have yet to tweet anything, however.)If you want to learn more about Restaurante Manantial,
you can go HERE.

Wednesday, October 15, 2014

I’m sorry
for the delay in an update. We finally
went on our vacation to both Ecuador and Peru in September and it was a
blast! I enjoyed myself a lot more than
I was expecting despite a few bumps in the road along the way. I shall be updating about the food and
sights in another entry but I’m still in the process of editing my nearly 4,000
photos that I took while there. A bit
overboard? Perhaps, but when everything
I saw was amazing it’s hard not to take a photograph.

Just a few of the vendors

Today, I
figured I’d update about this year’s 6th annual VeganMania that was
held on the 11th. It was our
4th time going to the event and the 3rd time since they
moved the event to the Broadway Armory.
I always look forward to the event for a number of reasons.

I quite enjoy the speakers that
they have each year. There’s always a
broad spectrum of speakers – someone for everyone to listen to. My wife knows more about the ‘famous’ vegans
in the community and even though she tells me about them, without a face or
direct exposure to the people she’s talking about, I have the same blank face
your dog has when you say anything more complex than “sit” or “treat” to
him/her. It never fails that each year
there’s some speaker she knows about and I respond with, “Who was that?” This
is followed by a confused look on her part but that’s because she
doesn’t understand why I couldn’t automatically recall some name she mentioned
six months ago. (I have the memory of a goldfish…) However, after sitting through the talks, I always come away with
new people in the community to appreciate.

This year was no exception. The 1st speaker we caught was
David Robinson Simon, lawyer and author of Meatonomics. My wife has the book but I haven’t been able
to read it just yet – an issue I plan to correct very soon. Surprisingly, I did remember my wife
telling me about the book and the author before we showed up. See?
A broken watch can be right, after all!
Mr. Simon touched upon a few points that he expands on in the book. For example, he talked about how the meat
and dairy industries work with the government in a myriad of ways including
their effective lobbies in Washington.
He also discussed the true cost to taxpayers for that hamburger you buy
at that golden arches burger joint. The
talk was fascinating and despite vaguely knowing the issues addressed in the
talk, it is alarming to hear cold, hard facts coming from someone who obviously
put a lot of work into the research and cares about the topic. I’ll talk about the book in-depth once I
read it. Stay tuned! Needless to say I highly suggest checking
out his book! It will blow your mind.

Left to right: Mariann Sullivan and Jasmin Singer

The next speakers were the
hosts of Our Hen House, Mariann Sullivan and Jasmin Singer. Again, I knew of them thanks to my wife
listening to their podcast. Other than
recognizing the name of their podcast I didn’t really know what to expect. They gave a talk on what struggles a newbie
might have in the world of veganism. It
wasn’t necessarily a topic that concerned me since it’s been awhile since I’ve
been a newbie vegan, but it was quite funny and you could totally feel the
enthusiasm the two had talking to the audience and for sharing their experiences
with veganism. After the talk I told my
wife that there was yet another podcast I would have to start following. Check it out!

Another reason I love VeganMania is
the food, d’uh. Every year I stuff
myself with as much food as I can when I’m there. There are around a dozen or so different restaurants and other
vendors who have dishes for you to try in the food court. And everything looks and smells so good! I try to vary my selection when we get there
but sometimes there are a few favorites we just have to visit. I’ll sometimes try something from the
Chicago Diner or Native Foods Café since I love their food but then I try to
get something from one or two other vendors (at least). This year, I tried some soft serve ice cream
from Temptation, a gyro-like plate with BBQ seitan bits from another vendor, a
salad from Native Foods Café, a raspberry chocolate cupcake from Chicago Diner,
and a few bites from food my wife had, too.
Besides the main food court there were a few businesses set-up through
the main room that were giving away samples of their products. My stomach was quite happy by the end of the
day.

My seitan gyro

My wife's kale burger - so good!

My salad from Native Foods Cafe.

Tofurkey samples, which were so good!

Yet another reason I go is to
refuel my vegan batteries. I’ve said it
before but it’s cool to be around others like you when you’re in a relatively
small minority of the larger population.
Everyone seems to be in a good mood when they’re there and the vibes are
infectious, which, given the current state of the world, I should probably
avoid catching to be on the safe side.
It’s very cool to see vegans, vegetarians, and the veg-curious all come
together in one place.

My swag! Too much?

Lastly, probably my favorite reason
for going is all the vegan merchandise.
My wife and I are suckers for funny and/or in-your-face bumper
stickers. I never thought I would be one
of “those” people when I was younger but I can’t deny that I am. I love watching people in my rearview mirror
as they read the stickers and either shake their head or laugh or take pictures
of their favorite ones. I picked up
just two this year but I think they make good additions. The “eat humans” sticker is from Action for
Animals and the “humane meat” one is from Herbivore. I also like my vegan message shirts that I sometimes get. I’d go broke if I bought everything I wanted
to get while there. I picked up a
t-shirt from Compassion featuring an elephant breaking out of chains with the
caption, “Animals Are Not Property”.
It’s pretty b.a.

All in all, a very fun time! I can’t wait for the next one.

Sorry for the lack of decent
pictures. I was using my phone’s camera
this year and the quality kind of shows.
I’ll step up my game with the next entry! Until then, keep calm and vegan on!

You can not only find Compassion HERE but on Twitter at:
@compassionco

Thursday, August 14, 2014

Wow, has it
been almost a month to the date since my last entry? The time has just really flown by for me. That’s mostly due to obsessively going over
plans for our upcoming trip to Ecuador and Peru. There’s a lot one has to do when you have 2 countries to traverse
over 20 days and you have no idea on the reliability and timing of public
transportation. Sadly, a lot of time
was wasted making myself paranoid with reading other travelers’ reviews. (Note to self: never ever read people’s
reviews. Especially not from anyone who
isn’t accustomed to roughing it in the slightest.)

This would've been useful this last month.

It’s our
first time visiting the two countries but we love to travel. Life’s too short not to explore the
world. My wife’s more of the traveling gypsy
spirit than I am, but I’m getting a lot better since we’ve been married. Before I met her, I had only been to a few
states here in the U.S. Since we’ve
been married, we’ve been to Europe, Puerto Rico, and Costa Rica. This will be our first time in South
America.

Since
becoming vegetarian, however, we’ve only been to Costa Rica, England, and
Germany. I honestly thought being vegan
in Costa Rica would be rough but it was quite easy. You would think that for a place surrounded by water there wouldn’t
be much in the way of vegan food but that turned out not to be true. I’m hoping for more of the same in Ecuador
and Peru (come on, HappyCow!).

The most
frustrating thing in the planning stage before any of our trips as vegans, at
least for me, is reading non-vegetarian/vegan travel books. There are probably 3-4 vegetarian places
listed in each travel book that we’ve checked out for everywhere we’ve been to
and that’s a generous number. I love
the phrases in the travel books that describe the vegetarian restaurants,
too. “Hearty enough even for
meat-eaters!” or “You won’t believe how filling it is even without meat!”

Uuuuh, no
d’uh. How about animal-based restaurant
reviews done by vegetarians? “Odors
from burning flesh that aren’t as noxious to stomach as you’d think!” or “Token
salads that give you more than two cherry tomatoes!” Or, if you’re at some rustic, outdoorsy BBQ joint, “As long as
you can ignore the stuffed animal heads on the walls, your French fries and
corn on the cob will be quite enjoyable!”
(Come to think of it, that’d be pretty amusing. Why am I giving these ideas out for free?)

This is
even ignoring all the reviews of special events that you can see when you go to
towns they list in the books or attractions you can see or places to stay. It’s amazing how many animal-centric things
you can pick out while reading something as innocuous as a travel book. That’s not to say that I have to flip
through pages of obnoxiously omnivore-based language. It’s just interesting to see it from an “outsider’s” perspective.

My main
reason for this is that we need an actual vegetarian/vegan travel book for us
worldly wanderers. Now, there are a few
decent to great sites and blogs and vlogs out there for us on the topic of
vegan food abroad. For example, Kristin
Lajeunesse has been killing it with amazing pictures and stories based on her
travels around the world. Seriously, if
you’re vegan and you love travel and different foods, check her site out HERE
(how cool is her site’s name: Will Travel For Vegan Food?). My wife and I were able to listen to her at
a recent VeganMania event here in Chicago.

There’s
also a pretty cool site called Vegan Backpacker that is run by two Canadian
vegans, John and Jill. I’ve only
recently stumbled upon it but they do seem to have a lot of cool tips for
traveling as vegans abroad. I even saw
an entry about Peru, which I’ll be looking into before we leave.

However,
there is still no full-fledged Lonely Planet styled travel book. Sure, there probably won’t be much money in
it for the publishers but a vegan can dream, right? There’s got to be a big enough niche market out there where this
would be popular. I find it hard to
believe that even a small travel book couldn’t be published on the cheap and
distributed to major markets or made available for purchase online. After all, how annoying is it for vegans to
have to either write down every important piece of information they see online
or to have to carry an iPad around because there’s no book they can take with
them? I mean, to be quite honest, I
never bring electronics with me anyway when I’m on vacation. I have enough of electronics when I’m home
and having a book with me is easier.
I’m not constantly worrying somebody is going to steal a book or I’m going
to lose a book like I would if I had to bring along a laptop or a tablet or a
smart phone.

Am I
missing a resource that’s out there that somebody can recommend? Because if not, I guess I’ll just have to
roll up my sleeves and write one myself (or go halvesies with another vegan
writer… hint hint, internets!).

Until that
day comes, however, keep calm and vegan on!

You can find Kristin Lajeunesse online a number of ways –
including Facebook – but one way is to follow her on Twitter at @KristinLaj

Tuesday, July 15, 2014

I know I
have reviewed The Chicago Diner before (check out the entry and feast your eyes
upon the pictures of delicious foods!) but I’ve never been to their second
location in Logan Square. We’ve always
loved the original location but today time was a bit more pressing to us than
preference so we went to their newer location.
Even though it was the same company, I had this weird feeling like we
were cheating on the Halsted Street location.
I know that I’m odd, thanks.

While the
Halsted location had a 1950s café vibe to it, the Milwaukee Avenue location in
Logan Square felt a bit more upscale.
There were longer booths in the middle of the restaurant and a bar
directly to the right as you entered.
Along the far wall was a big “Meat Free Since ’83” sign hanging from a
wall. We were seated at a smaller
two-seat table along the wall and began scouring over the menu. Let me tell you that that was no easy
task. Every time we go in there I find
it nearly impossible to narrow my choice down to one dish.

I ordered
my regular mocha shake, since nobody should ever leave The Chicago Diner
without trying one of their shakes, and somehow resisted ordering the larger
size. This turned out to be a wise
decision since I stuffed myself on the food.

For
appetizers – yes, plural – we ordered the Thai Chili Wingz and the
poutine. We seem to get the poutine
whenever we go there but how can you pass up fries covered in vegan sour cream,
‘bacon’, Teese vegan cheese, jalapenos, green onions, and gravy? You can’t, is the right answer if you know
what’s good for you. However, I think
the most amazing appetizer I’ve had there are the Thai Chili Wingz. HOT. DAMN.
They were amazing! These seitan
‘wings’ could probably fool many omnivores if they didn’t know it was
vegan. They came with a chili lime
marinade and served with Sriracha Ranch dipping sauce. I was seriously considering the notion of
getting an order to go.

For my main
dish I ordered the Caribbean risotto. I
was having a very tough choice deciding because the avocado tostados, scrambled
tofu deluxe, and pierogi quesadillas (!!) all sounded so good. This was a bit of a gamble for me, however,
because I’m still hit-or-miss on eating beans.
My wife was pretty surprised I even ordered this. I figured that it would be tolerable since
it was in a risotto and I love risotto.
I could eat risotto every day.
Grilled veggies and plantains surrounded the risotto. Despite my love-hate relationship with
beans, this dish was really good! The
rice, beans, and plantains reminded me of our vacation to Costa Rica and it got
me in the mood for our upcoming trip to Ecuador and Peru.

So,
definitely check out their second location in Logan Square if you’re in
Chicago. It’s a cool place with the
same fantastic food. I already want to
go back. I think my insatiable appetite
is partly why I’m the broke vegan.

Until next
time, keep calm and vegan on!

The Chicago Diner in Logan Square is located at 2333
N. Milwaukee Avenue. Check out my
previous TCD review for the link.

Saturday, July 5, 2014

I apologize
yet again for another gap in posts! My
wife’s family recently visited us from Vancouver, British Columbia, so I was
unable to post for a while. I was too
busy drinking, eating, and being merry. It was also the week of my wife’s birthday and since she’s the
talented one when it comes to baking, she really wanted to go nuts and she
baked several pies, a cake, and even ice cream. To say that I’ve spent the last few days trying to recover is an
understatement. I thought that I would
update with yet another restaurant review to get back into the swing of
things. Besides, I’ve been meaning to
update about Native Foods Café for a long time.

I
absolutely love Native Foods Café and if they are reading this (HI!), I hope
they know they should make a new restaurant out in the Chicago burbs. My stomach would quite appreciate it. I might be able to make it to one of their
restaurants more than once every other month if that was the case. For those of you lucky enough to be near
one, Native Foods Café is a very cool chain restaurant that is popping up in
more and more locations. They serve
what they call “fast-casual” vegan food, which basically means you get to a
counter, order your food, and sit down until they bring the food to your
table. Usually, the food arrives within
minutes of you ordering.

The ones in Chicago all opened up
within the last few years and we’ve been to all three locations. Each one is a bit different in style but the
staff, food, and atmosphere are all equally great. I’m partial to the one on Clark Street, which also has outdoor
seating, since it’s easy to get to from Union Station and the lakefront.

Our most
recent visit took place this last week when we wanted to grab lunch with my
wife’s mother and stepfather. They are
omnivores but are pretty open to most of the vegetarian or vegan places we take
them. Native Foods was on the top of
our list of places we knew that all of us would enjoy and nobody would leave
hungry. Their ingredients are homemade
and their dishes are made fresh each day.
Their homemade seitan and tempeh are both quite delicious!

This trip
was a bit lighter than usual. Normally,
as many of you readers are aware, my wife and I try to starve ourselves before
we go out so we can stuff ourselves on the food at the restaurant. However, this time we had to limit our meals
because we had plans to eat dinner with my family for my wife’s birthday. Such a shame because since Native Foods Café
changes their menu every so often, there were a few items I would’ve liked to
have tried. At least what I did have on
this visit was fantastic!

My wife had
the Ancho BBQ Brisket, which looked really good. That’s a possibility for me on our next visit.

My wife’s
mother and stepfather both had the Oklahoma Bacon Cheeseburger, and they both
really enjoyed it! As my wife’s mother
said, she gave the meal two thumbs up.
It kept them full for most of the day, too. If you were planning a day of walking around the city, this would
probably be a good meal to fill up on before continuing on your journey.

As for
yours truly, I had the Twister Wrap with sweet potato fries. The wrap had salad greens, avocado, cucumber
salsa, chipotle sauce, and Native Chicken (which you can get either blackened,
grilled, or crispy). It was
amazing! I’m a sucker for sweet potato
fries so it’s no surprise I liked that part of the meal. As long as they have this on the menu, I
would highly recommend ordering it.
Omnivores would like it because it’s hardy but doesn’t contain anything
too “weird” for them.

Twister Wrap!

Since I didn’t take a lot of photos
for this visit, I thought I’d add on the meal we had at this same location
during our previous visit. My wife and
I split a polenta appetizer.
Unfortunately, since the menu changes, I forgot the specific name of
this dish. It was also quite delicious
and I hope it comes back on the menu.
Just look at how good that looks!

I had the Philly ‘Cheese Steak’ for
my main meal. Now, I have to admit that
I’ve never had a Philly Cheese Steak when I was an omnivore and I had never
been tempted to eat one before. It
looked disgusting and like a heart attack on a plate. So I’m not sure what possessed me to try this dish but I am quite
happy that I did. It was surprisingly good
– if not a bit messy! The portion –
like everything at NFC – was large and worth every penny. It’s not currently on the menu but if you
see it when you visit, get that, too!
Heck, order one of everything.

They also
have a customer loyalty program, which can come in handy if you go there with
any sort of regularity. For our last
visit, for our two main meals we were able to save ten bucks off our order
because of it, and like I said, it’s not like we go there every week. It’s free to sign-up for it so there’s no
reason not to get it.

Artwork hanging up at the Clark Street location.

So, with
that, I will let you go back to salivating over the pictures I posted. If you have a Native Foods Café in your
neighborhood or in a location you plan to visit, I highly recommend stopping in
for a quick bite to eat. If you’re an
omnivore or someone who is veg-curious and are looking for somewhere to eat-out
at, check this place out. You can load
up on food for a decent price. And for
us broke vegans, what more could you ask for?

Until next
time, keep calm and vegan on!

You can check out Native Foods Café HERE to find
locations near you and to see their current menu. You can find them on a few sites including Twitter at
@nativefoodscafe

Sunday, June 15, 2014

Hello, one
and all! Sorry for yet another delay
but since I’ve returned from my cousin’s wedding, I've been working constantly up until this last Friday. 10 days in a row sure
can fly by when you’re not looking.

Since I
last left you, a lot has happened.
First of all, I booked a vacation for this fall to Ecuador and
Peru! It’s going to be amazing. Or at least I hope it will be amazing! It’s the first time my wife and I have been
to either country but it’s part of our world domination tour. We’ve been to Ireland (nearly all of it),
Northern Ireland, London, Germany, Puerto Rico, and Costa Rica (to name but a
few) so far. I’m really looking forward
to finding new vegan places in each country and reporting back on them.

You’d think
that’d be all, but you’d be wrong. We
also booked our (last major) vacation for 2015. Brussels, Amsterdam, Bruges, Paris, various cities in Luxembourg,
and wherever else we can manage to visit are all on the list. This will mark the first time we’ve been to
all of these places. I told you: world
domination tour. I say it’s our last
major vacation because after that, we might stick to small trips here and
there. We just wanted to go out with a
bang. It might seem a bit crazy but we
generally live like misers for most of the year. Plus, my wife never uses her vacation time so that helps to pay
for our tickets. I just didn’t want you
all to think that the title of my blog was a bit misleading. I still wear the same clothes I’ve had for
over a decade. See? Broke. With that being said, I may be posting fewer
restaurant reviews in an effort to save money.
SAD, I know.

Anyway! Now that you’re all caught up, let’s get to
the heart of the entry. I wanted to get
to a restaurant we went to in Lockport, IL a short while back. I just never got around to mentioning it
thanks to all the craziness going on in my world. It’s a shame because the restaurant in question is quite good and
worth the trip if you’re even remotely close-by. You see, we went to Healthy Sins Vegan Café for a raw lunch.

I’ve never
been to Lockport despite the fact that I’ve lived about 45 minutes away for
most of my life. I wish I had visited
it sooner because it looks like nothing has changed since the 1930s. You half-expect Bonnie and Clyde to run out
of a bank at any moment.

I found the speakeasy!

It’s got a
small but cool main street and you can walk along the Illinois and Michigan
Canal that runs next to their main street.
It makes for a peaceful Saturday if you’re looking to get away.

The
restaurant itself was very cool and unexpected given the 1930s vibe from the
town. The restaurant has artwork
hanging up along the walls and the tables themselves are in the shape of
leaves. I’ve felt that the one problem
with raw restaurants tends to be that the meals look smaller than you would
want for the price you pay for them.
Don’t get me wrong – I love raw restaurants and Chicago has/had a few
that are quite good. But, as the Broke
Vegan, it’s not a type of restaurant I’d go to each week.

That being
said, this restaurant’s portions were decent.
I did spend quite a bit but that’s mainly because I wanted to make sure
I had enough variety to give a decent review.
We ordered two appetizers, two main meals, and two desserts for about
$60. By comparison, we ate at the Loving
Heart (see the review further down the blog) for about $25-30 and ate like
kings. If we were just going there any
other normal day we probably would’ve only spent about $45 or so. That being said, we went for lunch and were
full for most of the day.

Our first
appetizer was an order of bagel bites.
The ‘bagels’ were dehydrated bread slices (probably made of a
combination of flax and some sort of seeds if I had to guess). There were six slices and each slice had its
own topping. There was a pesto, a pumpkin
seed cheese, a taco ‘meat’, an egg salad, a tuna, and a ‘sloppy joe’
topping. I would have to say that my
favorites were probably the taco meat, the egg salad, and the sloppy joe. I loved the variety and the unique ways they
were able to create raw, vegan toppings.

The second
appetizer was an order of nachos that featured dehydrated chips. The dish came with taco meat, guacamole,
salsa and onions, and sour cream drizzled over it all. These. Were. Fantastic. The menu says it’s a meal in itself and
that’s no joke. We probably could’ve
just had the two appetizers and two desserts and been content.

My wife
ordered the pizza after much debate and was really impressed with it. It looked delicious and I probably would
order that the next time we went. The
waitress had recommended it to her and said it was a popular choice. So if you’re new to the raw scene and don’t
know what to get you might want to check that out.

I ordered
the sloppy joe’s because I grew up addicted to sloppy joe sandwiches and
whenever I see a sloppy joe option on a menu, I have to give it a shot. It wasn’t too bad but not my favorite raw
dish. I was originally going to go with
a raw pasta dish and probably should’ve because I think after eating all that
other raw taco meat, I was on raw vegan meat overload. It was an interesting take and I dig their
attempt at it but by the end of the meal I was about ready to explode. The dish also came with a small side salad
and a small fruit salad.

Why can't I eat the picture?!?

The dessert
I had was a raw apple pie, which – and I cannot stress this enough – was
amazing! It tasted like it was cooked
and was probably one of the best raw desserts I’ve had (not counting
homemade). That was worth the trip to
Lockport alone. Just look at the
picture! I’m drooling even now.

All in all,
I would definitely return here and I recommend it to anyone who wants good food
and is looking for a little indulgence (as far as spending a little cash
goes). The staff was super friendly and
the décor and vibe were cool.

Just down the street is Naked
Sprout Organics Market, which makes its own juices and smoothies. I would also recommend stopping inside to
grab a drink before you head back home.
I had an oatmeal cinnamon smoothie, which might sound odd but was pretty
good! It had a bit too much nutmeg for
my liking but was tasty none-the-less.
My wife, however, had the strawberry-lemon cheesecake smoothie and – hot damn –
it was so, so, so good! It was like I
was really drinking a mashed up cheesecake.

I promise
not to be gone for as long as I have been for my next entry. I have a few things lined up to talk
about. Hope everyone is well! Until next time, keep calm and vegan on!

You can check out Healthy Sins Vegan Café HERE. They are located at 928 S. State Street,
Lockport, IL, 60441.